Five AMD Radeon R9 270X tested: ASUS, MSI, Sapphire and XFX

Which Radeon R9 270X should you get?

By Koen CrijnsTuesday 26 November 2013 05:58

Introduction

Anyone remotely interested in computer hardware will know that AMD recently released a very large number of video cards in a very short amount of time. The new series includes the flagship Radeon R9 290 and 290X cards but also more affordable versions based on existing GPUs. One of the new models is the Radeon R9 270X. We received five of them from ASUS, MSI, Sapphire and XFX.

Radeon R9 270X

As we mentioned in the original review, the AMD Radeon R9 270 is based on the Pitcairn chip used previously for the Radeon HD 7800 series. The R9 270X is in fact a new version of the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition with a new cooler and higher clock frequencies of 1050 MHz for the GPU and 1400 MHz for the memory. For the 7870 that was 1000 and 1200 MHz. The number of shader units remains 1280 and the card has a 256-bit memory bus. Like its predecessor, the R9 270X has two PEG6 power connectors. It uses a little more power, 180W.

While some R9 270X cards come with 4GB of RAM the majority have 2 GB, including the five we tested for this review. Prices range between £150 and £180, which is more affordable than the GeForce GTX 760. As you can see here, they're practically equals in terms of performance.

The 270X is fast enough for gaming in Full HD and can even handle some games on max settings, so it's a great and affordable card to get for gaming on a single monitor.

Similarities

The five cards we're looking at for this review have a lot in common. They all have 2 GB video memory and all, except the XFX card, have identical monitor connectors: two DVI, one HDMI and one DisplayPort 1.2. That means you can use an MSI HUB to connect up to six monitors. All cards feature two PEG6 connectors and they're Crossfire compatible.